Child Poverty: Leicester

Liz Kendall Excerpts

Tuesday 1st October 2019 Westminster Hall

[Liz Kendall (Leicester West) (Lab)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered child poverty in Leicester.

It is a pleasure to serve under your chairmanship, Mrs Moon.

It is a disgrace that in the 21st century, in one of richest countries in the world—Britain—over 4 million children are growing up in poverty. In Leicester, 40,000 children are growing up poor—up 3% in the last year alone—including almost 12,000 children in my constituency. When housing costs are taken into account, 40% of children in Braunstone are growing up poor. In Abbey, it is 41%, and in New Parks it is a staggering 43%.

Those statistics, however shocking, do not tell us what growing up in poverty really means for children and families in my city. Two years ago, Leicester City Council conducted a major survey of hundreds of children and young people. One in five said they worried about having enough to eat every single day. On one of my recent weekly school visits, a primary school head told me about a child who was struggling to concentrate in class. When the teacher asked what the child had had for breakfast, he said, “Nothing”—and he had had only a bowl of salad cream for his tea the night before, because there was nothing else in the house.

Ten years ago, the organisations in Leicester that work with disadvantaged children focused on helping parents to find employment opportunities, equipping them with new skills, and providing support with parenting or help to quit smoking. Now they say they have to focus on the very basics of decent human existence—keeping a roof over people’s heads, clothes on their backs, food on the table, and the gas and electricity on. The reasons for this change are clear. They include the Government’s welfare policies, including the freeze in working-age benefits, the introduction of universal credit, and especially the five-week wait for it. There is also the shift towards in-work poverty; we have had the longest pay squeeze in 200 years, and more and more people are having to hold down several insecure jobs just to make ends meet. Appalling cuts to local council funding have decimated children’s and youth services, and vital support such as welfare advice. There is also the rising cost of living, and especially of housing. Increasing costs in the private rented sector are pushing so many children into poverty in my city.

These things have a major, immediate impact on children, but growing up poor has long-term consequences, too. When children in the most disadvantaged areas start school, they are up to 18 months behind their better-off peers in their development. They can end up playing catch-up for the rest of their life. If they live in inadequate or overcrowded housing, they often struggle to get their homework done, and are more likely to suffer from health problems such as asthma, anxiety and depression. Poor children are also less likely to be able to go on school trips or to do the extracurricular activities that many families take for granted and that are so crucial for child development.

A combination of all those things means that children growing up in poverty are less likely to do well at school, less likely to go on to further or higher education and less likely to earn the same salaries or to go into the same professions or vocations as young people from more advantaged backgrounds. Child poverty damages their lives and life chances, and it harms our country as a whole because we all miss out on their potential, their talents, their hopes and their dreams.

I am proud of the work we are doing in Leicester to try to tackle these problems. To give just one example, I chair the Feeding Leicester programme, which is working to end food poverty in our city. During the recent summer holidays, we provided 32,000 free meals to around 2,200 individual children across the city, predominantly in the most deprived areas. That included fresh fruit, which went down a storm. There were also lots of activities, such as sports, arts and crafts.

Unlike in previous years, we did that without any funding from the Government. We pulled together £40,000 from the city council through crowdfunding with the national Feeding Britain charity and support from De Montfort University. We had incredible help from our amazing community groups, adventure playgrounds and volunteers, without whom the holiday food programme simply would not have been possible. I know that that programme is not within the Minister’s remit, but will he discuss with the Department for Education why we got no funding this year? In fact, the only place in the entire east midlands to get any Government funding was the county of Leicestershire. I am not saying that there are no poor children in Leicestershire, but the idea that the need is greater there than in Leicester, Derby or Nottingham is simply a farce. We have just heard some results from what happened in Leicestershire, and even though it got over £800,000 I am afraid that it delivered fewer free meals to fewer children than we did in Leicester. That cannot be repeated next year.

Tomorrow the organisations I work with in the feeding Leicester programme, and many others across the city, will come together to draw up a new anti-poverty strategy for people of all ages. We know we cannot tackle this problem on our own, and the Government must take action, but we are determined to do everything we possibly can.

One issue that will be raised is the serious risk that the already unacceptably high levels of poverty we face in Leicester will get even worse in the event of a no-deal Brexit. The Government’s own assessment—Operation Yellowhammer—says:

“Low income groups will be disproportionately affected”

by a no-deal Brexit because of the risk of rising food and fuel prices. In other words, people who are already struggling to make ends meet will face an even bigger struggle if no deal leads to price rises. Operation Yellowhammer also says:

“Certain types of…food supply will decrease”

and that this

“will reduce availability and choice of products and will increase price, which could impact vulnerable groups.”

Food banks in Leicester have warned that a no-deal Brexit could lead to substantial increases in demand for food because more people will be struggling to make ends meet and that that will happen at precisely the same time as the supply of food is reduced, because there will be less surplus food available from the supermarkets on which our food banks depend. And all of this could happen in the run-up to Christmas, which is the busiest time of year for food retailers anyway.

Leicester’s emergency food partnership is already getting through 16 tonnes of food a month—16 tonnes of food for people who desperately need it. Action Homeless estimates that we may need to find another 8 tonnes a month in the event of no deal, yet we have no funds whatsoever to pay for that.

The Government must act to prevent the existing child poverty crisis from getting even worse in the short term, and to take the action that we desperately need to reduce child poverty in the medium to long term. There are four things that they need to do. First, we need immediate action to support our food banks. I have already raised this issue in Parliament with the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, the right hon. Member for Surrey Heath (Michael Gove), who is in charge of no-deal preparations. He said to me that he had seen no evidence that no deal would increase pressure on food banks, but I am meeting him tomorrow, along with Action Homeless and FareShare East Midlands, to raise our concerns directly with him and to ask for specific funding in the event of no deal. I ask the Minister here today: will he raise this issue with the right hon. Gentleman, too?

Secondly, the Government must make urgent improvements to help those who are already struggling on benefits and who face an even greater nightmare if Brexit leads to rising prices for food and fuel. In particular, the Government should lift the freeze on working-age benefits, which is currently due to last until April 2020, and end the five-week wait for universal credit. Leicester was one of the later places in the country to have the roll-out of universal credit. Ministers insisted that the lessons had been learned, but I can tell them that the evidence from my own eyes, from my own constituents and from our food banks is that those lessons have not been learned, and that families simply do not have the money or the savings to afford that five-week wait. If they lose their jobs or reduce their hours, they have to go on and off universal credit.

Thirdly, the Government must do much more to tackle the endemic low pay and insecure jobs that dominate too many sectors of our economy. I know they have just pledged to increase the living wage to over £10.50 an hour in five years’ time, but my constituents cannot wait for five years, especially if there is a no-deal Brexit, to get a genuine living wage to make ends meet. So I ask the Minister this question: what more are the Government doing to tackle this issue?

Lastly, we need serious and sustained action to tackle the cost of living. In particular, we need a long-term strategy to tackle this country’s housing crisis, with a massive programme to build more social and affordable housing, and to reform the private rented sector, the cost of which—as I have already said—is one of the major factors driving child poverty in Leicester today.

I realise that some of these issues are beyond the Minister’s remit, but let me just say this to him: the Government are spending over £6 billion on preparing for a no-deal Brexit. Imagine the difference that £6 billion would make to the lives of the 12,000 children growing up in poverty in my constituency. Imagine how their lives and the future of our country could be transformed if this money was spent on giving them the best start in life, and not on a damaging no-deal Brexit that the Government do not even have a mandate for. This is not a matter of necessity; it is a matter of political choice.

It is a disgrace that the Government are even contemplating a no-deal Brexit, which could make the poorest people in our country even poorer. They must change course—and now.

Social Security and Employment Support for Disabled People

Liz Kendall Excerpts

Wednesday 6th March 2019 Commons Chamber

[Sarah Newton]

I thank my hon. Friend for raising video recording, because our hope is that that will bring a lot of transparency, trust and confidence to the assessments. We are reviewing the findings of a successful pilot. We remain committed to rolling out video recording.

[Liz Kendall (Leicester West) (Lab)]

The Minister should know that there really are serious problems with PIP and work capability assessments. I have lost count of the number of constituents who have come to see me in a desperate state because of the lack of understanding and awareness, in particular for those with fluctuating physical and mental health problems. The fact that 83% of people with multiple sclerosis who appeal their PIP case are successful shows how flawed the system is. On that specific point, how will the assessment process and the training and skills of those delivering it change to address such serious problems?

[Sarah Newton]

Inevitably, we want to ensure that we make the process better. Each time I come to the Chamber, I describe the steps that we are taking. Specifically on the case of people with multiple sclerosis, or cases brought to me by people who feel that their conditions are not properly understood by healthcare professionals, I ensure that the healthcare professionals meet those people, that they look at the guidance together, and update it and the training used by the frontline people doing the assessments. We get positive feedback from that.

Every year, we look at independent research into the experience of people at the face-to-face assessments. It is really important to me that they feel that they are being listened to, and 89% of people said that the assessor had treated them with respect and dignity. In the high 80s, people are saying that they had time and felt listened to, and that they were able to—[Interruption.] That is still not 100%, which we are working towards, but it is important, because we do not want people outside listening to this debate feeling petrified about going to have an assessment. We know that the vast majority of people have a positive experience when they go along, but we are working continuously to ensure that we improve the process for everyone.

Universal Credit: Managed Migration

Liz Kendall Excerpts

Tuesday 8th January 2019 Commons Chamber

[Alok Sharma]

I will double-check and write to the hon. Gentleman if I am wrong, but I believe that we have put in place the arrangements required to enable people in certain jobcentres in Wales to communicate in Welsh.

[Liz Kendall (Leicester West) (Lab)]

It sounds as if the Minister thinks that all the lessons have been learnt and all the problems with universal credit have been solved, but let me tell him that in Leicester, one of the areas in which the roll-out has occurred later, too many people are still waiting too long. They are getting into debt, and there has been a huge increase in demand for food banks. May I urge the Minister, even before any pilot involving people on existing legacy benefits, to stop and carry out a fundamental review with all the experts and charity groups, so that we can secure the reform that we need and my constituents do not have to fear the future?

[Alok Sharma]

Payment timeliness may be one of the issues to which the hon. Lady refers. The position has improved. When people cannot receive their full payments at the end of the first period, it is often because we have been unable to obtain verification because no information on housing or childcare costs has been provided, but support is available in the system. If there are individual cases in which the hon. Lady thinks that things have not gone well, she should come and talk to me: I would be very happy to have that discussion.

Universal Credit Roll-out

Liz Kendall Excerpts

Tuesday 24th October 2017 Commons Chamber

[Damian Hinds]

I want to press on, because I do not want to take up too much time.

From last week’s debate, as well as the general commentary received and heard, I have taken away for action a number of points that were raised. There were some individual cases, and also policy and process matters, including how we can improve arrangements for direct rent payments, our approach in cases of domestic abuse and the process for housing benefit debt recovery. Some informational issues also came up. In response to my hon. Friend the Member for Gloucester (Richard Graham), I committed to publishing the roll-out schedule for the landlord portal and trusted partner status. A question was asked by the hon. Member for Newport East (Jessica Morden) about staffing levels. In fact, we are increasing, not decreasing our staffing levels to complement the roll-out of universal credit. The hon. Member for Oxford East (Anneliese Dodds) asked about the process for third-party representatives acting for clients. I recognise that we can do more in providing clear information on such matters and I commit to doing so. As well as reporting to the whole House, we are making sure that additional information is provided to Members as the full service comes to their constituency, and we are running a number of sessions in the House for both Members and caseworkers.

[Liz Kendall (Leicester West) (Lab)]

Those of us who have had some experience of working in government on rolling out policies know that just because a policy or change in policy is announced does not mean it is actually happening on the ground. I urge the Minister to accept the call for a pause to guarantee that the changes he says he is making are actually filtering through on the ground. That is a problem. It is not a new problem in government, but if he pauses some of the changes can be made so that people’s lives do not have to suffer.

[Damian Hinds]

I am grateful to the hon. Lady for that intervention. Of course, we monitor those things constantly. As I was saying earlier, this is one reason why we have pre-scheduled pauses in the sequence.

Yes, this is a fundamental reform. This is a lot of change. It is a new benefit, a new IT system and a new operational system involving new ways of working with partners. Yes, that does bring with it some challenges, but its implementation is happening at a very measured pace, stretching over nine years from 2013 to 2022. In the next four months, universal credit will move from covering 8% of the benefit recipient population to 10%. This careful, gradual approach means we can continually adjust and evolve the programme. We can see that in enhancements such as the landlord portal and trusted partners, the refreshed approach to advances and many, many other back-of-house and systems changes. We see this effect coming through in the huge improvements in timeliness and first-time accuracy.